Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for appearing today. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your resilience, and thank you for supporting so many Canadians throughout the most difficult time that Canadians have experienced. It's certainly the most difficult time that Canadian health care workers have experienced.
I have two questions. The first is for Mr. Coletto. The fact that we both did some boat racing is not why I'm picking on you. You had a really heart-wrenching testimony today and I wanted to come back to ask about meeting the needs of our health care workforce and making sure that young people look to nursing as an occupation that they'd like to choose. It's essential.
It's also essential that that workplace be safe. It's apparent through your testimony today, and through the testimony of others that we've heard, that that's not the case all the time. It provides me with an opportunity to highlight the recent passing of Bill C‑3, which does a couple of things. One is that it creates an offence for obstructing or interfering with someone's access to health care services. It also adds as an offence if any person who's providing health care services is being impeded by another person, and that could be in the context of providing care.
You mentioned that it was difficult to take medical leave. Perhaps it was because of the status of your employment at the time, but Bill C‑3 also adds 10 days of medical leave in a calendar year.
What are your reflections on the passing of this bill? What needs to be done going forward to ensure that young people choose nursing as an occupation, so that those workplaces are safe and free of the type of harassment that you described to us?
Once again, I thank you for your good work in the face of such challenging circumstances.